1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to communication technologies, and more particularly, to increasing performance of mobile devices.
2. Description of the Related Art
When a wireless transceiver in a mobile device or in any other user equipment (UE) is switched on, the UE starts searching for wireless signals from a source of wireless communication signals (for example GNSS signal, Wi-Fi signal, etc). The UE tries to detect a signal again and again until the connection is established. This procedure requires significant resources and results in the premature discharge of the UE power supply. In a city, it may be very computationally expensive. Since at any moment a great number of UEs co-exist in public places, the chance that some of them are currently in contact with a source of wireless communication signals is rather high.
A UE can obtain information regarding available signal sources via a low power wireless network (LPWN) from other UEs, thereby reducing power consumption due to this auxiliary information. Such a goal can be achieved on the basis of a-priori knowledge about presence or absence of the desired sources.
Where a UE obtains information about the absence of the desired signal, one of the UE modules can switch off its transceiver until the moment when the UE receives information about the presence of this signal.
GPS technology includes Auxiliary GPS mode (AGPS) which enables connection with satellites by obtaining supplementary information from an assistance device. The assistance device transmits information regarding the available satellites, and the mobile device can try to acquire signal from those particular satellites without trying to acquire a signal from satellites which are not indicated by the assistance device. In this case, the UE is seeking for an assistance device and, if the search result is positive, the UE establishes the GPS connection with the help of the AGPS mode. Such an approach enables accelerating the search of a GPS signal and significantly decreases the power consumption in the UE.
The above mentioned technology is described in US Patent Application 2010/0134353. However, it works for GPS signals only. At present, no method is known for obtaining auxiliary information for arbitrary signals generated by any wireless sources.
WO 2011/056102 discloses a technical solution which describes two types of UEs connected by a secure communication channel: the first UE is always in an ON mode and the second UE, e.g. a mobile phone, is switched on occasionally. The first UE performs permanent spatial scanning for detecting active nodes of wireless communication. The other UE, upon entering a net, contacts the first UE to obtain a message with information regarding available active nodes, thus saving its own scanning resources. Such a message constitutes auxiliary information which substantially increases the mobile phone performance. The main drawback of this system consists in the necessity of paired UEs connected via a secure communication channel, thus seriously limiting the sphere of use.